View full sizeRichard Drew / AP PhotoFormer Syracuse ball boys Bobby Davis, left, and Mike Lang, right, flank attorney Gloria Allred during a news conference, Dec. 13, in New York. The men say they were molested by former assistant Syracuse basketball coach Bernie Fine and have sued the school and men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim for defamation.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Two former ball boys should be allowed to disprove in court Syracuse University basketball coach Jim Boeheim’s defamatory statements about them, their lawyer argued in papers filed late Wednesday.

“Boeheim’s statements not only harmed Bobby Davis and Mike Lang, they also no doubt had a substantial chilling effect on other victims of sexual abuse who already face so many obstacles to reporting,” Wang wrote.

But Wang contends he did. One was Boeheim’s false statement that SU had thoroughly investigated Davis’ allegations in 2005, Wang said.

The SU investigators interviewed four people Davis suggested they contact to try to corroborate his allegations, Boeheim has said. But Davis gave the university “far more” than four names, Davis wrote in an affidavit. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick reviewed the SU investigation and called it inadequate.

Neither Wang nor her co-counsel in the case, Gloria Allred, could be reached for comment this morning.

The two sides are scheduled to argue the motion to dismiss the lawsuit April 27 before state Supreme Court Justice Brian DeJoseph.

Fine, 66, has not been charged and has denied all wrongdoing. SU fired him in November.

The court filings included an affidavit from Ellen Ford, clinical director of Vera House who has counseled victims of sexual abuse for nearly 30 years. She said she gave the affidavit in response to Boeheim’s assertion that part of the proof that Davis was lying was that it took so many years for him to come forward.

The vast majority of child-molesting victims don’t come forward for years, and the phenomenon of delayed reporting has been well documented in scientific literature, Ford wrote. It takes enormous courage for victims to come forward, she said.

“When powerful and well-known people respond by calling such victims liars and detailing incorrectly the way they are liars, other victims are unquestionably inhibited and provided the message that they too will be punished if they come forward,” Ford wrote in the affidavit, which is dated Tuesday.

Boeheim’s comments have caused Davis and Lang “tremendous emotional and financial harm,” because of Boeheim’s high esteem in the community, Davis wrote in an affidavit.

“Having someone like Jim Boeheim, who everyone in Syracuse seems to hold up as a god, immediately come out and make false statements... has been extraordinarily painful and has brought both a new, added layer of fear and shame and revived my old feelings of profound guilt and anxiety,” Davis wrote.